My First Digital Camcorder, And Not A Bad Choice Either!

Author's Rating:

Pros: Compact, camcorder doubles as still camera, light, zoom, image stabilization

Cons: Faulty night recording, digital zoom gets very shaky, software only exports from camera to PC.

The Bottom Line: 
A nice camera to get. Not the best camera, but has a small size and looks cool.

Author's Review
This is a very nice camera. I originally got this camera to record myself skateboarding. I needed a small, compact camera.

It is a very nice, semi-weighty camcorder. The flip-screen is nice, but kind of small.

The zoom is 10X optical and 700X digital, but you NEVER want to use the digital zoom unless the camcorder is not going to be moving AT ALL. Even if you have the image stabilizer (EIS) on, it will still shake alot.

Also, don't try to shoot at night. The camcorder has a mode called "MagicPix" (I believe) which brightens up the whole screen. While the concept is good, it could have been thought out a little better. The colors get very vivid, try thinking of extremely bright colors. You may get blinded by how vivid the colors get.

There are many other nice modes, like sports mode which allows you to record fast moving subjects with less blur. There is a spotlight mode which helps the camera focus on the subject if they're in a spotlight. There are several other modes which are available with this camera.

Some of the other recording features are modes like "Mirror", splitting the screen in half, then mirroring the half of the screen onto the other half. There is also a "Ghost" mode, which leaves a slight trail when your subject moves. This is a nice feature. You also have "Stretch" and "Wide" mode which make the picture taller or wider, respectively.

There are also several nice playback modes. You can playback in "Sepia" mode, or in "Black and White" mode, and you can record onto a standard VHS tape in any of these modes. When you playback, you can access any of the digital modes also, like ghost and others.

Also, when using this mode, there will be some recording delay. What I mean by this is that when the object you are recording moves, it will appear blurry and out of focus. The movement will also appear slow and off-timing. Good idea, but not a good execution of the idea.

Finally, I mentioned that I use the camera for my skateboarding. The software is not all that hot for editing. Actually, it has NO editing software. You can export the video from the video to the PC. If you have a USB connection, then it will take about a minute for every second of filming to transfer. In other words, if you have a minute of film, then it will take you about ten minutes to upload this footage. If you have a iLINK, then it will take you one second per second of footage.

As I said before, you cannot edit with the included software, and you cannnot place the footage back onto the camera. Don't get this camera if you want to do alot of editing, unless you already have the software to edit, or if you plan on doing no editing.

The software DOES however let you e-mail the clips and it also lets you put other pictures onto the camera's removable storage (more later).

If you plan on not doing any editing (remembering a birthday or other event, then there is an included cable that lets you record to VHS if your VCR has Audio Visual plugs; you know, the red, white and yellow plugs).

The removable storage: this camcorder doubles as a still digital camera. It stores its pictures on a SanDisk card or a multimedia card. On a 32MB card, it can store over 400 pictures at normal resolution. No special effects included, but you can review your pics on the camera.

This feature also allows one nice feature. If you are using the camcorder function, and you want to transfer a single scene (picture) onto the disk, as if you took that picture with a still camera, then on playback, you just push a button to copy that exact image onto the SanDisk or Multimedia card.